Winks provides insight into the people you pass on the street

With the booming popularity of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social-media, it seems like it has been inevitable that someone would create a way for you to discover the online identities of the people we pass on the street. Greek startup Winks has done just that, building a platform that helps you connect with the people you pass.

The idea behind Winks is that users are offered insight into the profiles of users who happen to be within a 150-meter radius. The platform lists Wink profiles, which include the person’s name, photo links to social-media accounts, and brief biographies (job and location). From there, you have the ability to “wink” at them and, if they choose, you can enter into conversation. You must hurry however, as the conversation window closes after 20 minutes.

Most startups need to worry about generating revenue, but these guys are not making it a priority at the moment, choosing instead to focus on building up the userbase. What is interesting is that they have chosen to take that route, despite having not yet raised any external funding.

Winks has already released apps for Android and iOS, but they are taking a bit of an unusual step (compared to many of the startups that we cover) and are building additional apps for “wearables”, with the goal of allowing users to “augment their perception of interesting people around them”. Speaking of mobile apps, the startup’s offering for Android currently maintains a rating of 4.4 stars (out of 5) from 327 reviewers. The iOS version does not display ratings at the moment, so it is too early to tell how well users have taken to it.

Although they tell me that they have built awareness for the app through word-of-mouth since launching in October 2015, the startup currently claims 11,000 users, a figure that includes 200 who are active daily and 1,500 who are active monthly.